Visual accounts of Finnish and Greek teenagers’ perceptions of their multilingual language and literacy practices
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Anne Pitkänen-Huhta
Anne Pitkänen-Huhta, PhD, received her academic training at the universities of Jyväskylä and Lancaster. She works currently as a Senior Lecturer of English at the Department of Language and Communication Studies, University of Jyväskylä, Finland. She is also the Head of the Department of Language and Communication Studies. Her research focuses on multilingual literacy and discourse practices, especially of young people, (foreign) language learning and teaching in formal and informal contexts, and on multilingual language education. Her research employs ethnographic, discourse analytic and visual methods.
and
Anastasia Rothoni
Anastasia Rothoni holds a PhD in Applied Linguistics from the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece. She has been a state school English teacher in secondary education in Greece since 2006. She has also taught seminars and workshops in the English Department of the University of Athens for undergraduate students and has participated in programs organized for training future English teachers in Greece. Her research interests lie chiefly in the area of young people’s language and literacy practices and in the field of digital technologies while she is also interested in ethnography, visual methods and multimodality.
Abstract
This paper uses visual methods to explore how teenagers in two different European countries (Finland and Greece) personally relate to their first language and to English, which is widely used in the everyday lives of young people in both countries. Our data comprise sets of self-made visualizations in which 14- to 16-year-old teenagers depict their personal relationship to their first language (Finnish/Greek) and to English. Theoretically and methodologically, we subscribe to socio-culturally oriented research on (foreign language) literacy and language learning and recent studies on multilingualism. Overall, by offering a detailed account of the variety of representation forms and meaning-making symbols employed by our participants in their visual products, our analysis in this paper highlights the common but also diverse perceptions, values and attitudes that young people from two different European contexts bring to their practices and their encounters with English and other languages in their lives. By revealing the personal meanings and values attached by teenagers to English, our analysis also provides indirect insights into the multiple ways English is locally encountered, appropriated and drawn upon by young people in two different countries to serve their own purposes.
About the authors
Anne Pitkänen-Huhta, PhD, received her academic training at the universities of Jyväskylä and Lancaster. She works currently as a Senior Lecturer of English at the Department of Language and Communication Studies, University of Jyväskylä, Finland. She is also the Head of the Department of Language and Communication Studies. Her research focuses on multilingual literacy and discourse practices, especially of young people, (foreign) language learning and teaching in formal and informal contexts, and on multilingual language education. Her research employs ethnographic, discourse analytic and visual methods.
Anastasia Rothoni holds a PhD in Applied Linguistics from the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece. She has been a state school English teacher in secondary education in Greece since 2006. She has also taught seminars and workshops in the English Department of the University of Athens for undergraduate students and has participated in programs organized for training future English teachers in Greece. Her research interests lie chiefly in the area of young people’s language and literacy practices and in the field of digital technologies while she is also interested in ethnography, visual methods and multimodality.
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© 2018 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- ALR special issue: Visual methods in Applied Language Studies
- Drawings are talking: Exploring language learners’ beliefs through visual narratives
- Children’s drawings as part of School Language Profiles: Heteroglossic realities in families and schools
- Young learners’ portrayals of ‘good English teacher’ identities in South Korea
- Visualizing EFL teacher identity (re)construction in materials design and implementation
- What does it mean to be an English teacher in Brazil? Student teachers’ beliefs through narratives in a distance education programme
- Beliefs and practices of foreign language learning: A visual analysis
- Visual accounts of Finnish and Greek teenagers’ perceptions of their multilingual language and literacy practices
- Children’s images of HIV/AIDS in Uganda: What visual methodologies can tell us about their knowledge and life circumstances
- ‘If I didn’t know you what would you want me to see?’: Poetic mappings in neo-materialist research with young asylum seekers and refugees
- Words and images of multilingualism: A case study of two North Korean refugees
- Timeline analysis of complex language learning trajectories: Data visualisation as conceptual tool and method
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- ALR special issue: Visual methods in Applied Language Studies
- Drawings are talking: Exploring language learners’ beliefs through visual narratives
- Children’s drawings as part of School Language Profiles: Heteroglossic realities in families and schools
- Young learners’ portrayals of ‘good English teacher’ identities in South Korea
- Visualizing EFL teacher identity (re)construction in materials design and implementation
- What does it mean to be an English teacher in Brazil? Student teachers’ beliefs through narratives in a distance education programme
- Beliefs and practices of foreign language learning: A visual analysis
- Visual accounts of Finnish and Greek teenagers’ perceptions of their multilingual language and literacy practices
- Children’s images of HIV/AIDS in Uganda: What visual methodologies can tell us about their knowledge and life circumstances
- ‘If I didn’t know you what would you want me to see?’: Poetic mappings in neo-materialist research with young asylum seekers and refugees
- Words and images of multilingualism: A case study of two North Korean refugees
- Timeline analysis of complex language learning trajectories: Data visualisation as conceptual tool and method
